COLEVIEW Pre-School Supervisor Sandra Cullen says their outstanding Ofsted grade is down to the highly qualified and hardworking staff.

The pre-school, which moved into its own building near the Coleview Community Centre in 2012 and looks after 62 children aged three and four, was awarded the top grade after an inspection last month.

Sandra was delighted with the result, particularly since recent changes in Ofsted mean that achieving an outstanding rating has become increasingly difficult for education provisions.

She said: “We’re really, really pleased. The last time we were inspected we were rated good so to get outstanding, particularly in light of the recent changes means we’re very pleased.

“I do think it’s down to the staff. They are so completely devoted and enthusiastic and work extremely hard and it is great that that hard work has now paid off.”

Inspectors were most impressed with the work of the staff.

They said: “Staff have extremely good knowledge of how children learn and provide children with high quality play and learning experiences. Consequently, children are happy, have fun and make excellent progress across all areas of their learning and development.

“Children are highly confident and show a superb level of independence for their age. This is because of first class staff practice and a stimulating learning environment that is organised so that children are consistently able to select resources for themselves.”

Inspectors were also impressed with the work the pre-school does with parents, and the management stucture.

It said: “Partnerships with parents are outstanding. Excellent relationships between staff, children and parents ensure that children feel safe, secure and highly valued.

“Children benefit significantly from the excellent two-way flow of information between their main carers, which promotes a highly consistent approach to meeting their individual needs.”

Ofsted inspectors recommended only one improvement to the pre-school, which is to ‘further enhance children's understanding of plant life cycles and where food comes from by, for example, growing fruit and vegetables to eat at snack time’.

Sandra said: “We have a garden which we did use quite heavily so we have been giving it a bit of a rest.

“When the inspector asked what improvement I thought we could make I did say making more use of the garden to make healthy snacks and teaching the children about food.

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